“The Moscow Academy for Geopolitical Sciences.”

That really does sound like one hardnosed mutha of a think tank (a T-96 at least) that’d make the AEI look like a Fabian barbie.

Where do people find these lunatics – In the Joe Vialls wing of Hotel Lithium?

Actually these days, you’re more likely to find them about half up Pennslyvania Avenue in DC, from number 1600 to the OEB.

Special Reports
Operation Bite: April 6 sneak attack by US forces against Iran
planned, Russian military sources warn
By Webster G. Tarpley
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Mar 26, 2007, 01:02

WASHINGTON DC, — The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now
on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 am on April
6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known
Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly “Argumenty
Nedeli.” Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian
General Staff for his account.

The attack is slated to last for 12 hours, according to Uglanov, from
4 am until 4 pm local time. Friday is the sabbath in Iran. In the
course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are
marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities,
research centers, and laboratories.

The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian
engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The
US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to
be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian
Gulf, and for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed
forces to be wiped out.

The attacks will be mounted from a number of bases, including the
island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is currently
home to B-52 bombers equipped with standoff missiles. Also
participating in the air strikes will be US naval aviation from
aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those of the
Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will be
fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the
Arabian peninsula. The goal is allegedly to set back Iran’s nuclear
program by several years, writes Uglanov, whose article was reissued
by RIA-Novosti in various languages, but apparently not English,
several days ago. The story is the top item on numerous Italian and
German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites.

Observers comment that this dispatch represents a high-level
orchestrated leak from the Kremlin, in effect a war warning, which
draws on the formidable resources of the Russian intelligence
services, and which deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness
by pro-peace forces around the world.

Asked by RIA-Novosti to comment on the Uglanov report, retired Colonel
General Leonid Ivashov confirmed its essential features in a March 21
interview: “I have no doubt that there will be an operation, or more
precisely a violent action against Iran.” Ivashov, who has reportedly
served at various times as an informal advisor to Russian President
Vladimir Putin, is currently the vice president of the Moscow Academy
for Geopolitical Sciences.

Ivashov attributed decisive importance to the decision of the
Democratic leadership of the US House of Representatives to remove
language from the just-passed Iraq supplemental military
appropriations bill that would have demanded that Bush come to
Congress before launching an attack on Iran. Ivashov pointed out that
the language was eliminated under pressure from AIPAC, the lobbing
group representing the Israeli extreme right, and from Israeli Foreign
Minister Tsipi Livni.

“We have drawn the unmistakable conclusion that this operation will
take place,” said Ivashov. In his opinion, the US planning does not
include a land operation: ” Most probably there will be no ground
attack, but rather massive air attacks with the goal of annihilating
Iran’s capacity for military resistance, the centers of
administration, the key economic assets, and quite possibly the
Iranian political leadership, or at least part of it,” he continued.

Ivashov noted that it was not to be excluded that the Pentagon would
use smaller tactical nuclear weapons against targets of the Iranian
nuclear industry. These attacks could paralyze everyday life, create
panic in the population, and generally produce an atmosphere of chaos
and uncertainty all over Iran, Ivashov told RIA-Novosti. “This will
unleash a struggle for power inside Iran, and then there will be a
peace delegation sent in to install a pro-American government in
Teheran,” Ivashov continued. One of the US goals was, in his
estimation, to burnish the image of the current Republican
administration, which would now be able to boast that they had wiped
out the Iranian nuclear program.

Among the other outcomes, General Ivashov pointed to a partition of
Iran along the same lines as Iraq, and a subsequent carving up of the
Near and Middle East into smaller regions. “This concept worked well
for them in the Balkans and will now be applied to the greater Middle
East,” he commented.

“Moscow must exert Russia’s influence by demanding an emergency
session of the United Nations Security Council to deal with the
current preparations for an illegal use of force against Iran and the
destruction of the basis of the United Nations Charter,” said General
Ivashov. “In this context Russia could cooperate with China, France
and the non-permanent members of the Security Council. We need this
kind of preventive action to ward off the use of force,” he concluded.

The Senate has upped the ante on the House, setting a mandatory withdrawal date of 31 March 2008. The House stipulated august 2008.

This one’s going to the wire.

The really shabby thing about this bill is the amount of pork that’s been attached to it – obvious bribes to swaying representatives. Bring back the line-item veto I say

$20B well spent by the Democrats. Not their own money of course.

This war stinks in the nostrils of American voters. It is therefore good politics to oppose it. But it is not good politics to appear to be opposing it by impeding or endangering the troops. The Dems must find a way of doing the former without being perceived to be doing the latter.

The reality is that funds begin to dry up for the Iraq adventure after 15 April 2007. If Bush signs a bill similar in structure to the current House bill, he will be able to fight his war until August 2008.

The Dems could argue quite effectively that it is Bush’s choice to deny himself the oppostunity of fighting this war for 18 more months on his own terms. How much time does he need? Therefore his determination to veto this bill is a product of his own well-known stubbornness and state of denial about the dire and irretrievable nature of the Iraq fiasco.

In other words, its Bush’s choice: continue the war his way, or accept that he has no solution within the 18 month timeframe.

Thus, the Dems could argue, it is Bush who is endangering the troops by insisting that they continue to wage a struggle for which there is no reasonable prospect of victory, one of the classic criteria of just war theory.

It is highly doubtful that a signing statement would have eny effect at all on an appropriations bill. either the Congress allows the Executive to be financed, or it does not.

I was talking about the armed services micro-management aspect of the bill. I’m assuming that the Democrats would otherwise fully fund troops to the requested levels.

The house & senate of course have the sole constitutional power to raise money, but to strip troops of equipment and supplies would doom them in 2008. So there’s definitely one senator from NY who would vote for full funding, and it only takes one.

The really shabby thing about this bill is the amount of pork that’s been attached to it – obvious bribes to swaying representatives. Bring back the line-item veto I say.

Then there are signing statements. Bush can scribble over the bill that the executive has authority as commander in chief and that any proposals in the bill counter to that constitutional authority are null and void.

It is highly doubtful that a signing statement would have eny effect at all on an appropriations bill. either the Congress allows the Executive to be financed, or it does not.

For example the President could not willy nilly add a couple of zeros to some appropriation and claim thereby the right of access to those monies.

The president cannot conjure monies up from nowhere by virtue of the stroke of a pen.

The power of the purse is beyond even the voracious appetite for Executive Privilege claimed by Bush.

If he won’t sign whatever bill he gets, there’s no money for Iraq and there has to be a withdrawal. Unless it’s a clean bill or he does sign it, in which case… ?

Then there are signing statements. Bush can scribble over the bill that the executive has authority as commander in chief and that any proposals in the bill counter to that constitutional authority are null and void.

Any dispute would go to the supreme court and my money’s on the president in that case.

It would be bad practice to clog up courts with knowingly faulty legislation, but it would provide funding. However, it won’t come to that – the senate will stomp all over this bill.